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Purim 2015

Yeah.
It’s been a long time, no?
I have good reasons but you’ve heard them all before (work, kids, life, work, sleep, friends, work, kids and oh, did I mention not enough time in the day ever?!) and they are just, well, they are just what they are. So. I’m here now.

And it’s Purim. A favorite holiday, made even better this year by my use of technology. As I sit here, buried in snow in Boston, my family and dear friends in Israel are sending me photographs of their gorgeous children, dressed in costume, playing outside on the green grass in the warm sun. Sunshine. Grass. Costumes. I am jealous.

So, we made Hamantaschen. I used the same recipe I used here but this time I took photos.

Hamanaschen via Kveller.com

Ingredients

2/3 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2-3 cups of flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

dash of salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Cream the butter and sugar. I used the food processor because, as you may recall, I am lazy.

Add the egg and vanilla and give it a whir. Add the baking soda and flour and mix until it becomes a big ball. Mine was super crumbly. I should have added a bit of water here but didn’t. Instead I sort of smushed it all together, wrapped it up and threw it in the fridge for a few hours.

When I took it out I realized that it was way too dry to be rolled out. So I put it into my mixer and added a bit of water (maybe a spoonful or so) and mixed it up. Made it more pliable and I was able to roll it out.

We used a small round cookie cutter. My plan was to make small cookies- for the more commonly seen larger size, use a larger cookie cutter.

I rolled the dough to about 1/4 to an 1/8 of an inch thick and the kids helped me to cut out the circles.

Now for filling. Poppy seed is my favorite and maybe one of these years I’ll make it. We did the shortcut strawberry jam, apricot jam and chocolate since that’s what we had. I melted the chocolate chips in the microwave before using them as past experience says that they won’t melt in the cookie itself.

To fill and shape, place a bit of the filing in the middle- maybe a half to a full teaspoon- in the center of the circle. Wet a finger and trace the outside of the circle so that the sides will stick to themselves. This was my son’s favorite part. Sadly, I have zero photos of him helping me but he was so excited to do it.

Fold one edge over.

Fold the next edge, overlapping the first.

Fold the final edge over the first two, creating a triangle.

Place on a greased cookie sheet. Repeat until you’re out of dough.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until they are golden brown. I actually like mine a bit underdone so tend to pull them on the early side.

Thanks for hanging in with me. I owe my son a birthday letter since he’s almost 3 years and one month already! Here’s his cake (it didn’t come out quite as well as I’d hoped, somewhat lopsided):

It’s my daughter’s birthday next and tomorrow is their joint party at our house with friends. I’ll be making cakes well into tonight…. Oh boy. Who needs sleep?!